Seventeen-year-old
Bianca Piper is cynical and loyal, and she doesn’t think she’s the
prettiest of her friends by a long shot. She’s also way too smart to
fall for the charms of man-slut and slimy school hottie Wesley Rush. In
fact, Bianca hates him. And when he nicknames her “the Duff,” she throws
her Coke in his face.

But things aren’t so great at home right
now, and Bianca is desperate for a distraction. She ends up kissing
Wesley. Worse, she likes it. Eager for escape, Bianca throws herself
into a closeted enemies-with-benefits relationship with him.

Until it
all goes horribly awry. It turns out Wesley isn’t such a bad listener,
and his life is pretty screwed up, too. Suddenly Bianca realizes with
absolute horror that she’s falling for the guy she thought she hated
more than anyone.

Review

The DUFF is my first Kody Keplinger novel. And surprisingly (in a good
way), I loved her writing style. Although the storyline is quite usual,
the narrative is downright honest and feels extraordinary real to me. I
love how the characters come to live under her pen, especially our
heroine Bianca. She’s bitter and uninterested in the notion of true love
but at the same time she plays the role of mother hen to her two
beautiful best friends Casey and Jessica. She hated the handsome playboy
Wesley Rush in her school, but a series of problems and scenarios
brought them together, not as a loving couple, but merely as partners,
if you get what I mean.

The idea of Bianca having flings with
Wesley as a distraction from her problems kind of threw me off at the
beginning. I mean, it would appear inappropriate in the East, where
(premarital) sex is a taboo, much less reoccurring ones with no formal
ties between the involved parties. However, the real feelings of love
and care that slowly developed between Bianca and Wesley were sweet in a
way.

I like that the author actually sends out some
thought-provoking messages through this novel. Sometimes we unknowingly
hurt others - we think we are better than others and some insult them
like they deserve it. But the truth is, everyone has their own problems,
it doesn’t mean that you can judge others just because you think you
are better. After all, no one is perfect.

After finishing with The DUFF, I’m certainly up for more novels by Kody Keplinger!

Whitley Johnson's dream
summer with her divorcé dad has turned into a nightmare. She's just met
his new fiancée and her kids. The fiancée's son? Whitley's one-night
stand from graduation night. Just freakin' great.

Worse, she
totally doesn't fit in with her dad's perfect new country-club family.
So Whitley acts out. She parties. Hard. So hard she doesn't even notice
the good things right under her nose: a sweet little future stepsister
who is just about the only person she's ever liked, a best friend (even
though Whitley swears she doesn't "do" friends), and a smoking-hot guy
who isn't her stepbrother...at least, not yet. It will take all three of
them to help Whitley get through her anger and begin to put the pieces
of her family together.

Review

A Midsummer’s Nightmare by Kody Keplinger is another book with lots of
messed up characters. Our heroine Whitley is a wild girl, always doing
booze, swearing and has a complicated love life. I started out not
really liking her, but in the end, I loved her. Her devil-may-care
attitude actually comes from her bad childhood experiences of having to
see her parents fight and file for a divorce, her mother complaining
about her dad all the time and her dad always busy to see her. Everyone
seems to have forgotten about her, and she is attention-deprived. Sounds
cheesy, but that’s really something that can mess with a person’s
mentality and behaviour, especially a teenager.

The story opened
up with Whitley waking up beside a stranger after a crazy graduation
party. Obviously, they did something real passionate after getting
drunk. And Whitley was adamant to get herself out of the scene and
forget everything. But it seems fate has another idea on its mind. When
Whitley’s dad suddenly announced that he was getting married again, she
was shocked and upset. But the real problem arose when she found out
that she was going to have stepsiblings... I don’t want to spill the
beans, but I guess anyone of you who have read tons of novels might
probably see what’s coming.

Kody Keplinger has a way with
writing about messed-up characters that actually makes you love and hate
them at the same time. I love it that Keplinger is able to write about
everyone’s problems with such dexterity and depth that sometimes I
actually laugh out and cry along with the story. I hate that most of the
people are so focused on their own troubles that they fail to see what
damage they are causing to themselves and others.

My favourite
character in this novel would be Harrison, a surprisingly handsome,
good-natured guy who became best friends with Whitley. He’s the one who
really cared about her and offered her true friendship. He invites her
to come to his house for a slumber party, he saves her from almost being
raped and he always stands by her no matter what happens. Seriously, I
would LOVE to have a friend like Harrison – who cares if he’s gay?

A Midsummer’s Nightmare is a pretty decent summer read, and I enjoyed it as much as The DUFF.

Rating :

About The Author

Kody Keplinger was born and raised in rural
western Kentucky. She always enjoyed writing and began working on
"novels" when she was eleven. She wrote her first published work, THE DUFF, during her senior year of high school. Since then, Kody has written two other novels, SHUT OUT and A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHTMARE.

Kody currently lives in NYC and writes full time. She enjoys Thai food, Converse tennis shoes, and way too much television.

Kody writes for YA Highway, a blog devoted to the young adult publishing industry. She is also a featured writer for Poptimal.com, a popular pop culture blog, where she reviews TV shows and movies.

Rating Guide

Excellent/Fantastic!

Most enjoyable!

Good.

Meh.

Bad.

Praises for The Blog

Praise from authors:

Wow, thanks so much for the AMAZING review, Aik!!!! :-D I'm thrilled that you enjoyed the book so much, and thanks for making it one of your best books for 2012!!! You are awesome, good luck with your brilliant blog!! | Alexander Gordon Smith, author of the Escape from Furnace series

Thank you for the lovely review! And I like your comment, too: if Catherine were a plain girl, she may have gone unnoticed in Henry's court and faired much better. Alas, she did lead an interesting life! | Alisa M. Libby, author of The King's Rose and The Blood Confession

Thank you so much for writing a review of my book! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. You have a very impressive blog. It looks like you are very plugged in to the wider world! | Dori Jones Yang, author of Daughter of Xanadu

Your blog looks lovely, and I particularly like that you review short story collections, and review the stories within. | Kendare Blake, author of Anna Dressed in Blood